What do I need to know to build a led art piece?
April 21, 2014 4:27 PM Subscribe
I want to learn how to build something like this. Starting from nothing, what kind of skillset will I need to acquire?
Best answer: Projection Mapping.
There's free software that does this, like this.
A couple friends of mine who do visuals at shows have done some really impressive stuff with that, or other free/oss software and some craigslist projectors. It looks like that guy was doing some cute stuff with UV paint too, but the majority of that just looks like projection mapped stuff to me.
Be aware that this is something that i looked at playing around with, and concluded was an absolute black hole of time. If you want to do really precise, sharp, cool looking stuff like that you have to spend quite a while perfectly aligning the projector and getting the surfaces perfectly aligned. Then you spend untold amounts of time drawing it all out in the software. You might also have to play around with multiple projectors to get one that throws without keystoning at certain angles, etc.
posted by emptythought at 6:30 PM on April 21, 2014
There's free software that does this, like this.
A couple friends of mine who do visuals at shows have done some really impressive stuff with that, or other free/oss software and some craigslist projectors. It looks like that guy was doing some cute stuff with UV paint too, but the majority of that just looks like projection mapped stuff to me.
Be aware that this is something that i looked at playing around with, and concluded was an absolute black hole of time. If you want to do really precise, sharp, cool looking stuff like that you have to spend quite a while perfectly aligning the projector and getting the surfaces perfectly aligned. Then you spend untold amounts of time drawing it all out in the software. You might also have to play around with multiple projectors to get one that throws without keystoning at certain angles, etc.
posted by emptythought at 6:30 PM on April 21, 2014
As others have accurately pointed out, this is all done with projectors. VPT is a free cross-platform software (Mac/Win) that is has a significant number of features. A more user friendly, though somewhat expensive software is MadMapper (Mac only). A MadMapper bonus, with DMX controllers you can easily drive LEDs in addition to projection.
posted by tip120 at 4:55 AM on April 23, 2014
posted by tip120 at 4:55 AM on April 23, 2014
« Older How to remotely sell stuff on ebay | Which book am I looking for? Um, it was blue...? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
That is lit up with a regular projector. Probably a relatively bright and high quality one, but still it's just standard hardware, driven by a standard computer.
The software has a few major components:
There's a thing that you have to calibrate ahead of time with the geometry of the projection surface, and then it takes some 2d video steams, and perspective-corrects them so they look like they're flat on the weird angles.
The perspective correction math is not particularly difficult. Making the calibration process easy is probably the most difficult part of that part of the system. I have no idea if they're any good, or how much they cost, but there off-the-shelf software systems available for projection mapping.
The real interesting part, IMO, is coming up with clever video to input into that system, but that's also the hardest to define. There are a million tools for realtime generation and manipulation of video, and which are best will depend on what kind of effects you're trying to achieve.
If you want to make the software from scratch, look into learning 3d game programming.
BTW: the first place I saw this done was Amon Tobin's ISAM tour. They did a great job with that. I feel a little bad linking to a 2d video, since this kind of thing is all about the use of 3d space.
posted by aubilenon at 5:32 PM on April 21, 2014